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NEW SHORES

Edited in 2014, NEW SHORES is a sister film to IN THE STONE HOUSE in many ways. Like the latter film, it consists of earlier footage edited in recent years. It could be seen as a sequel to IN THE STONE HOUSE especially since it begins with a cross-country journey to the West Coast, where I settled, and concludes with a visit, in 1987, to the « stone house » in rural New Jersey. Even though there is some sort of time line that can be imagined, the film stands on its own. It is simply a series of episodes that touch upon facets of living in a new area with new weather, new people, new identities and stubborn old fears. The Bolex camera goes to work across landscapes and living areas, workplaces and gatherings. A dance of images: can beauty partner with dread and death? It's a film of the coexistences that percolate beneath the surface of ordinary events. A film of useless hopes and baseless fears. As mentioned, we conclude with a return to the house in New Jersey. We meet the current tenant and explain who we are. Our visit sets off a brief return to the sixties and the memory of a Halloween dance and, then, returns to the present. This Autumnal rondo completes the seasonal progression of IN THE STONE HOUSE yet re-states the impossibility of any going back.
My title should be familiar to film lovers as a paraphrase of Douglas Sirk's German film, ZU NEUEN UFERN, or TO NEW SHORES. That film also deals with displacement, chasing pleasures to escape the overall atmosphere of imprisonment and a final capitulation.